I just had my first experience blocking an instance, and it made my realize now nice the lemmy content curation experience is vs the centralized model.

Recently I started noticing a lot of posts from that I just found annoying. There was nothing inherently wrong with them, they just came from a culture I don't understand and so I found them cringey. Since they all came from one community, realized most of them come from the same instance. I just added that instance to my blocklist and the problem is solved!

Now think about in the centralized model. I would be forced to either just accept that these posts are in my timeline, or block each community and user individually. The instance gave me an easy way to manage my content.

I also appreciate that instances can manage the blocking for their users. So the most horrible stuff I don't even see. But it also preserves free speech, as those users who want to say horrible things can do so in their own instance, and most people will just block it.

Anyway, just impressed again by the fediverse!

I'm going to run my first DW game soon. I've never GM'd a TTRPG before, but I've played a few. Most players haven't played TTRPGs, so I like DW for it's simplicity to learn. I'm very comfortable improvising, but I have a bit of prep and would like some feedback on it.

My current idea is to start where all the characters are in a large jail cell. I'll ask the following to set up the world.

• Where is this jail cell? What's the city name, vibe, etc?
• Why have each of you been arrested?
• Who else is in the cell with you?

Then we'll set up bonds and then the adventure will begin. Based on how things go, they'll either have to do a prison break, or fight in a gladiator style arena. I'll have some enemies prepared for those scenarios. For anything else, I will just wing it.

Does this feel like good prep for the session?

I created a GPT to answer DW questions. In my testing it's pretty good about not getting confused with DnD rules (which regular ChatGPT does). I'm organizing my first DW game as a GM and I'm planning to use it to help me out.

Some good prompts for it:

• How much XP does a character need to level up?
• How do I resolve damage from multiple NPCs attacking the character?
• Suggest 3 monsters the party might encounter in an evil wizard's castle
• Create some stats for a Giant Chihuahua monster

You do need ChatGPT Plus to use it though

I was introduced to mantra meditation in a yogic setting, so I began with traditional vedic mantras ("Om", "So Ham", "Om Namo Narayanaya", etc)

Recently I've been experimenting with different mantras. Some of my favourites have been: "Be here now" and "Love, Truth"

What mantras do you use?

EDIT: I know many people have a knee-jerk aversion to anything crypto, but this is not a scheme to make money. I would be happy to see this done with fiat as well, but IMO this is much easier to do with smart contracts.

I am very excited about the possibility of the Fediverse, and the potential for many experiments in instance governance. A problem that all instances must content with is trolling and spam. It seems very difficult to impose a cost on these bad actors without harming honest users as well. Either instances have minimal signup friction and are vulnerable to being overwhelmed with bad actors & defederated (see the recent defederation decision from Beehaw), or they present frustrating barriers such as manual approval or waitlists for folks who just want to have fun

A possible solution comes from the blockchain space, which has been dealing with anonymous bad actors since its inception. Many blockchains and blockchain apps require users to stake some asset in order to gain certain privileges (basically a deposit). If the user is determined to be a bad actor, they lose some or all of their stake.

An instance could be integrated with a smart contract to manage membership could be very effective at dissuading trolls and spammers. A user could stake a small amount of money (say $10) in order to create an account on the instance. This could be done very quickly and would require no manual approval from admins. If the admins determine they are acting poorly, they could ban the user and slash their funds. If an honest user decides they don't want to stay on the instance, they could delete their account and recover their deposit.

(EDIT: An important part of this is that the funds are destroyed when slashed, not given to the admins or mods. This prevents a profit incentive to ban)

I've got a prototype smart contract for this. Would be interested in working with someone on this if there's anyone with experience with the instance management